Tuesday, 16 April 2013

The Riddling Reaver

THE RIDDLING REAVER

Paul Mason and Steve Williams; Edited
by Steve Jackson

Reviewed by Mark Lain

The second
release designed to turn FF into a fully-fledged RPG system (following on from
Steve Jackson’s Fighting Fantasy – The Introductory
RPG) is the first FF to introduce us to Mason/Williams’ seemingly favourite
creation, The Riddling Reaver, who would later re-appear in Slaves Of The Abyss and Magehunter, as well as a prequel short
FF in Warlock 13 called The Dreaming Sands. It is also one of
the wackiest FF books ever which, whilst certainly imaginative and almost Roald
Dahl-esque in its macabre humour in places, borders on silliness in other parts
and is very inconsistent and lacking in overall cohesiveness.

However, the
feeling of disjointedness can be overcome to some extent by playing the book in
the manner that the rules suggest – the cover clearly states that this book is “Four
thrilling role-playing adventures” and the recommendation is that it be played
out in four separate sittings to get the most from it, although the claim that
this could ever constitute four adventures is pushing it as each part would hardly
be memorable if played in total isolation – Steve
Jackson’s Sorcery this is not! It is even divided into four “Acts” to make
the desired approach even clearer. Plus, it would be pretty exhausting for the
players, not to mention demanding on the GM, if you were to attempt to play
this book through in one session. You’d probably all get bored with what would seem
like a catalogue of daft situations in four tenuously-connected environments,
but, broken down into four sections, it can be very fun and entertaining as the
players try to second-guess the Reaver’s constant tricks whilst making sense of
some of the bizarrest situations that any FF has ever presented. In fact,
situations is what this book is all about as it is a RPG scenario in the style
of the myriad scenarios produced for Dungeons
& Dragons and Warhammer, and
not a “sit and play it through” FF book. The book is designed to be read by GMs
only and gives as thorough a description as possible so that the GM only has
minimal padding to add dependant on what the players say and do. To keep the
feel of FF, the GM is required to supply the linearity that normally holds FFs
together and there is little room for wild digression on the players’ behalfs
as several NPCs act as “guides” throughout the adventure to keep it all on
track. This book is actually quite demanding on the GM as they would need to be
very familiar with each section before it could be successfully played. This is
very different to the dungeon approach of the two mini-adventures presented in Fighting Fantasy – The Introductory RPG
where each room/encounter/etc was a small cameo. TRR has a flow from section to section (or at least within each Act
it does!) and the interlinking sections must be understood fully before
attempting to GM this book, otherwise it could comes across to the players as
just a mess. This is another good reason to follow the book’s advice and play
it in four distinct sittings – attempting to play the entire book at once will
show that it actually is a bit of a mess overall!

The
introduction suggests that this book CANNOT be played without already having a
copy of its predecessor but this is not the case as, assuming you understand
the FF game mechanics, there is no reason why you can’t play this book without
needing to fork out for Fighting Fantasy –
The Introductory RPG. FF had become a major franchise by the time TRR was published and this comes across
as nothing more than cynical marketing. There are actually some very neat extra
rules listed in TRR that could be
applied to any FF RPG (again, without needing to know anything outlined in the earlier
book) and that should have been employed in the FF series as a whole. There is
a particularly good rule regarding unconsciousness (presumably to lessen the
chance of one person dying and having to sit the game out whilst the other players
plow on ahead without them) where if your Stamina is reduced to zero you are out
cold, rather than dead, and can be revived. Stamina dropping to -1 suggests a
fatal wound. The zero = unconscious rule would be a bit awkward to use in FF
books in practice (unless there were lots of wandering Samaritans about the place
to help you) but these new Stamina loss rules do make good sense. The RPG standard
of bigger weapons doing more damage but being harder to use due to size/weight
is added in this book and the need for this rule is pretty much a given to create
realism. FF books have tried to factor this in with Skill penalties, but with
mixed results, and the deployment has been scattershod across the series as a
whole. Steve Jackson’s “editorial” influence is apparent in the inclusion of
Mighty Strike, where a double six roll in combat causes a fatal wound instantly
(he used this concept again successfully in Creature
Of Havoc) and this also makes a lot of sense. After all, cutting into a
finger will not hurt as much or cause as much of a problem as cutting someone/something’s head off! Finally, Magic is included. One player can opt
to be a wizard taking Skill and Stamina penalties in return for choosing from a
set of spells lifted straight from Jackson’s The Citadel Of Chaos. There are points in TRR where magic is genuinely handy and can make progress easier, so
this is a nice touch (even if the spells are hardly exciting or original) that
adds a bit of variety to play and characters. On the subject of characters,
this book apparently works best with five players, which, again, would be quite
a logistical undertaking for the GM and I can’t help thinking that more time would
be spent debating what anyone is going to do (especially as many situations
call for only one player to do something) if this many people were playing. On
the plus side, the more players there are, the more ideas can be suggested to
solve things and the less chance of any one player’s stats being reduced to the
point of death at too early a stage, which would ruin things.

The adventure
itself is divided into four distinct parts, each with its own environment and
aim. Part One is the most tenuous as the players just happen to stumble across
an event that the GM may have to make some effort to convince them is worth
investigating as it’s hardly inspiring. Assuming they are interested (or have
to be somehow forced to get involved), the first Act involves ascending a tower
to discover the Reaver, followed by using a set of his riddles to gather a
bunch of items from around Kallamehr which will then allow them to reach Act
Two. The tower itself offers little other than an introduction to the main
characters of the piece. The trawl around Kallamehr can be quite interesting
and there are inventive moments where tattoos can be got that have special
properties (remember this is meant to be a RPG so anything gained in this book
will still be there for the players in further adventures) plus it’s possible
to become a wanted fugitive. The usual FF fall-back of random encounters in
certain oft-visited places determined by dice rolling is present, but this does
keep things varied and helps with continuity. Overall though, Act One is
nothing special and just sets the scene. You also get to pick up a NPC in Act
One who is basically the GM’s legitimate channel to either keep the players on
track or outright help them if things start to go off-course or the players are
just stuck (the riddles aren’t easy in some cases!)

Act Two
involves a boat ride (on the Reaver’s boat “Enigma” – hardly takes much to
think that up plus the Reaver’s habit of wearing green does bring to mind
Edward Nigma/The Riddler from Batman),
the sole aim of which is to still be alive when the boat reaches the location
of Act Three. Act Two, in spite of its being a connecting stage, actually has
some of the most inventive moments in this book. Granted, the usual random
encounter dice roll is still in play for the top deck of the boat, but the
rooms in the hold can be very interesting. Especially intriguing are the vision
box (where each player sees something different, some appealing, some
terrifying) which can lead to all sorts of player reactions, the painting room
(which requires Crystal Maze-esque ingenuity
on the part of the players to figure out what to do), and a room where everyone
is miniaturised and meet a “giant” mouse with very high stats. Indeed, several
of the encounters on the boat can be quite tough (the mouse, a plesiosaur, and
a very dangerous chimera) which makes survival that little bit tougher and,
along with the more original rooms, adds a lot to what is otherwise a linking
section. There is also a room that may seem incongruous at this stage, but that
gives an important clue about the Reaver’s obsession with taxidermy which will
prove useful to know later in the adventure. Likewise, the first door with a
riddle on it that tells you how to survive the room is found on this boat –
again, this is a handy clue for success later in the game. Act Two ends with
having to negotiate a riddle room. As before, the riddles are not easy and
provide a nice challenge to the players.

Act Three
sees the players arrive on an island where the Enigma has taken them and this is
where the theme of the book lurches awkwardly towards feeling rather too much
like Island Of The Lizard King. There
are two types of Lizard Man here, as well as Pygmies, Head-hunters, and other
primitive creatures/peoples. This section really does not gel with the previous
two and this is where the book starts to become disjointed and any feeling of
natural flow starts to fade. Granted, the players do meet the Reaver
face-to-face as soon as they reach the island, but he’s in disguise and the
players might not actually realise it’s him. The initial jungle section is
fairly forgettable and is the least satisfying part of the adventure as a whole.
However, the far side of the jungle houses The Shrine Of Destiny which really
does take some imagination to even reach as you have to cross an invisible
bridge to access it – how long it would take the players to work this out is
anyone’s guess. The Shrine itself actually turns out to be something’s internal
organs which is certainly a surprise, although it probably doesn’t take that long
to work this out once the players are inside it. For the most part, the trip
through the shrine is as lacklustre as the jungle that came before it, but the
final stage where the players meet the (very strong) Icons Of Good and Evil is another
very inventive touch, followed by the Act closing with the Reaver revealing his
true identity and escaping in an airship.

The final Act
is easily the best. The first part involves the players trying to reach the Reaver’s
inner sanctum. This is the part of the adventure where the Dahl-esque black
humour (and at times total lunacy) kicks in proper, from the opening
negotiation of a waterfall that flows upwards, via a tricky Leprechaun
surrounded by giant butterflies that are trying to eat tiny dinosaurs, followed
by a possible encounter with a Tremlow (a very terrifying-looking, but
totally cowardly monster that runs off instantly), a library where (admittedly
stupidly) reading a book about summoning Fire Demons gets the players attacked
by one, then a series of encounters with more of the Reaver’s taxidermy
including two false-ending style stuffed Reavers and a set of stuffed versions
of the players themselves, and then a room where the riddles on cupboard doors
give clues as to what’s in them, it really does seem that the writers have
thrown everything at the last section and it’s definitely worth getting through
the previous three Acts to get to here, if only for the sheer entertainment
value. There are even some Wheelies to run into (more evidence of probable
Jackson tinkering and shamelessly adding in bits from The Citadel Of Chaos.) If the players can survive all this madness,
they must then use a clue to figure out how to get through the door that leads
to the very last section – the Reaver’s lab. This part does draw together some
previous (seemingly random at the time) encounters. For example, the machine
the Reaver uses to make the Mutant Lizard Men from Act Three can be found, as
can the machine he uses to create his minions, the Replicanths (which by now the players will
have encountered lots of in Act Four). There is another
throw-back to Batman (in particular the
1966 movie) in a room full of powdered creatures (just add water). Other
encounters include a particle bender (that allows the GM to have some fun
mixing things together with bizarre, if arbitrary, results), an almost
impossible to kill single-handedly suit of animated mechanical armour (Sk 14 St
20) that only works when it contains a player (who can also be hurt once its Stamina
drops to 5!) and that all weapons work against with a damage penalty of -1. A
void room (plagiarised from Deathtrap
Dungeon) presents probably the most lethal threat in the whole book and is
the last obstacle to negotiate before reaching the Reaver himself. Sadly, the
ending is a total anti-climax as it is not possible to get near the Reaver and
he escapes. This is almost unheard-of in FF as the feeling of achievement that
players get from surviving to the end and killing off the final baddie is all
but missing.

Overall then,
plot-wise, whilst there is little inter-connecting material between the Acts other
than chasing the Reaver, the plot has no illogicalities and its bizarreness is actually
very suited to its subject matter, even if it is very bizarre in places. The
big let-down is that it is book-ended by an intro and ending that are in turn uninspiring and
disappointing, and Act Three could be left out completely and replaced with
something more suited to the almost Arabian Nights feel of the other three
parts (everyone seems to be wearing fez and Ali Baba pants) or just something
better! On a positive note, the ever-welcome element of series linking is also
present when you can meet the person who supplies the creatures for the Trial
Of Champions.

Some of the
ideas in this book are genuinely original and imaginative and solving the riddles/tricks can be very complex (even if some can be solved by accident.) It is a matter of
opinion what the reader/players might make of some of the attempts at all-too-clever
jokes in the text – Hammet The Dash, Cona Nundrum, and Jaiphrai Ah’cha – and there
is an over-riding feeling that this book is designed to introduce the Reaver as
a marketable new NPC rather than another FF crack-pot for the player(s) to
despatch. He doesn’t actually seem very evil (which might be why he’s allowed
to survive) and the best analogy I can think of is that he’s the Trickster
Gods’ sort of Pope!

If this book
were a single-player “standard” FF it would be very hard as the riddles are
often tough, things like the void room are instant deaths, and some situations
would only be reversible if you kept running into benevolent NPCs throughout
the book which could get annoying. Likewise, many of the encounters are with creatures
with stats in double-figures. All this is made far easier with a group of players
so the chance of everyone making it to the (hopeless) ending is pretty high.

This book is
a rare and brave departure from the series as a whole and tries to do something
different with the FF concept by creating FF’s only full RPG scenario. The extra
rules add a lot and add welcome logic to how FF functions. It is difficult to
know what standard would have been achieved with later FF RPG books as this is
all we have to go on, but this is a decent start in spite of its flaws. It’s
certainly too inconsistent and over-reliant on wackiness and it seems a bit smug
at times as it’s not as clever as its writers think it is even though, in
parts, it’s as inventive and as complex to crack as FF ever gets.

The biggest challenge (and probably a reason for the concept of a FF RPG never really taking off) is assembling, and maintaining the interest through the duller parts, of five players to even give it a go in the first place...

2 comments:

Riddling Reaver came to me by way of school book club age 7, my first ever FF book. I ran it once through a few years later during secondary school lunchtimes, with an ever expanding group - and have borrowed bits&bobs from it in other campaigns (living tattoos!). Ultimately I allowed the players to climb trailing ropes and board the escaping Reavers airship, which of course was on fire from their firebolts or something they had fleeced during the quest, and crashed into the jungle. This book is probably why I now own three cheeseplants. Gamekeeper Jim James

About 22 years ago i gathered a group of guys together to try it out. Started out around 6pm or so, and ended at 5am in the morning, all in a single sitting. Nobody wanted was allowed?) to leave. I had six guys, i let them make their own character into whatever they wanted. I didnt care much about the game mechanics, but i tried to fix the story as i went along and it went incredibly good. I started adding npcs to the group, even those they were meant to kill. Towards act 4 they were a small army and i determined pretty much how the npcs acted. The end was an epic battle, players were commanding a small army with massive fire power and the reaver had a few thousand worth of skeletons in jello. i killed everyone off till i was left with one guy who had the boss battle. Let him have a hard one victory, while the other guys cheered him on. And when it ended, i let an npc (a monkey he picked up from act 2 i think) survive just so that he could walk into the sunset with a friend. BEST GAME I EVER PLAYED IN MY LIFE.